Chinese leaders will be pressured to tell the truth about the pandemic during an inquiry
The coronavirus pandemic has put nations and individuals under extraordinary pressure — and that pressure has exposed awkward and uncomfortable truths. Just like the avalanche aftermath of Swedish film “Force Majeur”, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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One of the more difficult things about returning to normal life might be looking some of our fellow citizens in the eye.
We’ve now seen just how abysmally many of us have behaved under coronavirus stress and lockdown pressure. It wasn’t pretty and it won’t be easy to forget. Or, in extreme cases, to forgive.
Stress tends to reveal an individual’s true nature. A person who is the soul of generosity and kindness during usual circumstances may become startlingly selfish once some heat is applied.
Or snow, for that matter.
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Readers may have once or twice happened upon a harrowing scene online from the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure. It depicts a happy family enjoying a meal on a restaurant balcony in the French Alps.
In the background, what was meant to be a controlled avalanche gradually builds into something terrifying.
As a gigantic cloud of snow powder strikes the restaurant, the father — acting on instinct, which in his case is pure self-preservation rather than the need to protect his family — abandons his wife and young children to run for his life.
There are no subsequent injuries, except to the father’s reputation. The rest of the film deals with the dreadful fallout from that revealing moment.
The second half of 2020 may be our own time for post-avalanche reassessments. We’ve seen who panicked and who stood firm. We’ve seen who put self-interest ahead of the greater good.
At the top of the list: China’s totalitarian regime, which first launched the coronalanche and then ran from it and hid behind the UN’s compliant World Health Organisation.
China’s rulers, through their embassies, consulates and state-owned media, have since attempted to conceal their guilt and shame by hurling comically indignant counterclaims at critics.
“China has made important progress in the prevention and control of COVID-19, accumulating experiences and buying time for other countries to fight the pandemic,” China’s Sydney consulate claimed last week, in the same ludicrously assertive style you’ll find in the official communist People’s Daily.
“This is an objective fact that cannot be denied and one that is universally appreciated by the international community.”
The world’s “universal appreciation” for Chinese kindness was slightly undermined last week when ambassador Jingye Cheng, China’s man in Canberra, openly threatened a trade boycott.
The ambassador said China might reject Australian products or refuse to visit Australia if the Morrison government continues its push for an independent coronavirus inquiry.
“Maybe also the ordinary people will say why should we drink Australian wine or to eat Australian beef,” Cheng mused in an interview, as though the “ordinary people” will have much say in their future dining choices.
Speaking of whom, panic-stricken Australians were widely vilified in the early days of the coronavirus for stripping supermarket shelves of toilet paper and other essentials.
This was selfish, sure, but now appears not to be much of a big deal in the overall scheme of things. For that, we need to look at the likes of mining magnate Andrew Forrest, whose China-derived wealth may colour his perception of that bastard dictatorship.
Like his fellow Western Australian millionaire Kerry Stokes, Forrest is now — exactly in the manner of China’s ambassador — calling for any inquiry into the coronavirus to be delayed.
Time is of the essence in any investigation, as any detective will tell you. Delays mean evidence can be concealed or destroyed. Those urging an investigative delay would effectively be putting on hold a probe involving the deaths of close to 300,000 people.
“We need to stop making accusations,” Stokes said last week in an interview with his own The West Australian newspaper, during which he characterised our relationship with China as purely economic: “If we’re going to … poke our biggest trading partner in the eye, it’s not necessarily the smartest thing you can do.”
Nor was it smart in the 1930s, I suppose, for legitimate Chicago businesses to resist gangster corruption. Sometimes “smart” is the opposite of “good”.
On matters economic, consider those who have long argued we should take a hit in order to save the world from climate change — but who now advocate continued or even enhanced Chinese engagement in order to dodge any economic challenges.
Victoria’s premier Dan Andrews, for example, is a big climate change activist who has burned through millions in the name of warmism. He’s also a signatory to China’s sinister Belt and Road Initiative, and believes Australia must become even more reliant on Chinese communism if we are to avoid financial difficulties.
An Andrews spokesman said last week that “[Chinese] opportunities will be more important than ever as we rebuild from this crisis”.
In other words, having been pummelled by a coronalanche, we must now turn to that disaster’s engineers for aid.
To hell with that. China stands exposed. Those who choose to deal with it are not merely economically cooperative but complicit.
“China can certainly count on its fair share of useful idiots,” BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil wrote last week. “Bit like those in the West who fawned over [the] Soviet Union in 1930s.”
But, added Neil, at least those fawning fools had an excuse. Unlike China today, the horrific scale of the Soviet Union’s brutality was not apparent until decades later.
Which leaves us with a choice: take a stand or run for cover.